


Like Another Country

by dogfishpoem



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, F/M, Homeschooled Castiel (Supernatural), John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Religious Cults, Sort Of, Un-Repressed Winchesters, the angels are siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogfishpoem/pseuds/dogfishpoem
Summary: "I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country."-Mary Oliver, "Dogfish"It's Castiel Shurley's first semester at college. His sister Anna, worried about how he'll adjust to college life after growing up homeschooled on a rural farm, interacting with few people outside of his siblings and his father's cult-adjacent church congregation, arranges for him to room with Sam Winchester, the little brother of her friend Dean. The Winchesters decide take Cas "under their wing" and show him all of the pop-culture and worldly experiences he's been missing out on. Castiel just hopes that they won't get tired of him and his quirks before he can figure out who he really is, outside of who his family has always expected him to be.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Various Side Relationships
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I was homeschooled, so this is pure projection, sadly, not stereotypes.

This certainly wasn’t how I pictured the beginning of my foray into adulthood. I was sitting in the third row from the back of the bus, window seat on the left side. It was the same place I’d sat a hundred times before as I headed into town on errands, although usually with Hannah or Alfie to keep an eye on.

At least I didn't wear shorts today, I thought as I shifted my weight, absentmindedly, back and forth in my seat. The worn, scratchy fabric of the bus seats always made my legs itch. It was, really, the only part of riding the bus that I didn’t like. I liked being surrounded by new people, getting to watch them as they stared out the windows or read their books or laughed about some personal joke with a friend. It made me feel like I was a part of something, part of a new, little community that existed only for the duration of this bus ride and then would be gone. 

I let myself feel the warmth of that thought for a second more, then sighed, and forced myself to look at the buildings passing by outside the large windows as we got closer and closer to campus. It isn’t polite to stare, I reminded myself, and I know that thinking about the bus as a community has to be exactly what Gabe was referring to when he told me to “lay off that overly earnest shit.” I didn’t approve of Gabe’s word choice (to be fair, none of Gabe’s choices since moving out made any sense to me), but I knew that he was right. If I didn’t want to be labelled the weird kid immediately, I _was_ going to have to hold that “shit” in. 

That and about a hundred other aspects of my personality… College is about self-discovery, though, right? Maybe I’d discover some cooler person inside of me, someone people would actually want to be friends with. Well, people who aren’t related to me, I amended, remembering Gabe’s smile as he called me a “delinquent in the making” when he left me at the bus station. 

He seemed so sure that I was going to “go off the rails” as soon as my freshman year started, just like he had. I guess Anna had to, albeit in a different way; her’s involved more heated arguments with our father, perhaps the same amount of alcohol, though. Anna would murder Gabe if she knew the stories that he’d told me, often reverently, about some of the parties he’d seen at her first year. I could never picture her like that; I was so used to seeing her seriously studying for some test or playing along with some elaborate game that Alfie had invented. 

We all knew that Gabe was going to rebel when he moved out, except maybe Michael based on his explosive reaction, but Anna had been a surprise. I didn’t even know she was wanted to; I’m not sure she did either. It’s not like there’s a lot of opportunity to do anything drastic when you’re only ever at home, an hour away from other people, or at church with your cousins. 

I felt the frown on my face and wondered how long it had been resting there. It’s not that I wasn’t happy for Anna; she looked like a weight had been lifted off of her when I saw her now and she smiled like it was such an easy thing to do. It’s just that seeing her, now, made me nervous. It made me feel like there really might be some unknown person inside of me who’d been trapped all this time simply from lack of opportunity. Maybe I was going to be the craziest Shurley at State so far and I just didn’t know it. 

I heard the familiar hiss of the bus brakes and tried to shake off the cloud of worry those thoughts had formed. What a silly thing to be worried about, I chastised myself. You’re a grade-A nerd, nobody is going to invite _you_ to a party in the first place. 

I managed to shift my worries to somewhere more reasonable, as I hoisted my worn duffel bag, careful of the right handle where it had started to fray, and re-adjusted my hand-me-down backpack. I shuffled my way down the length of the aisle and tried not to think anything overly-dramatic about starting my new life again as I stepped off onto the sidewalk. I was going to at least try to make Gabe proud of me, despite his assurance that if he saw me on campus somehow he was definitely going to pretend like he had no idea who I was. 

I pulled the crumpled campus map out of the pocket of my coat and looked for my dorm again, as if I hadn’t already memorized its exact location, as well as the location of all of my classrooms. As I set off across campus I tried, and failed, to not wish too hard that Anna was here. She’d always been, well, nicer to me than Gabe and all this summer, as I thought about what it was going to be like to move away from the ranch and live on my own, knowing that she would be on campus, too, just a couple buildings over, had been incredibly reassuring. She’d planned this whole welcome week schedule for us where she’d show me all the cool, secret things around campus and introduce me to her friends and I had, of course, acted like that was so embarrassing. Then her acceptance letter had come, from the journalism program in Ohio, and there had never been any question about whether or not she was going to go. 

Of course, she’d set something up in her absence. My stomach filled with anxiety every time I thought about it, because, while I was immensely grateful, it also did make me feel like a child and the whole point of this is that I _was not_ a child, not anymore. One of her friends, some guy named Dean that she refused to say where she met, had a younger brother who was my age who was living in the freshman dorms, too. His name was Sam and they had both decided that we should be roommates. It was better than rooming with a complete stranger, but, well, I’ve been told my “people skills” are rusty at best and I know that this was also Anna’s way of ensuring that I make at least one friend while I’m here. I only hoped that she turned out to be a good judge of character. I was fully prepared to be the one to fill the role of “the weird roommate.” 

My thoughts were mercifully occupied by the difficulty of hauling a duffel bag with a nearly broken strap full of all your worldly possessions up five flights of stairs for the rest of my walk. It was already late afternoon once I reached my hall and I knew that my new roommate, Sam, who I had never met before and would be sharing a 500 square foot space with for the next four months, would definitely already be there. 

I took a deep breath, then some more, trying not to get into my head too much as I searched the doors for my number. This was impossible, of course, because I was always in my head too much. I proved this by standing in front of room 401 for a few minutes trying to figure out whether it was weirder to knock on the door of my own room or to walk in unannounced. I opted for knocking, Michael had always told us to air on the side of politeness.

I heard some shuffling in the room before the door was yanked open and I was standing face to face with a stranger. He’d stepped into the doorway as he pulled the door open, which meant he was invading my personal space. It also meant that I could see every one of the freckles across his cheeks and nose and the places around the collar of his army jacket that had gone threadbare from age and use. I shifted back on my heels, feeling my ears get a little red. 

“Yeah?” the stranger said, his voice was gruff and it made me realize that I had just been staring at him then, not saying anything. _Way to start on the right foot, Castiel._

“Uh, hi,” I started, not meeting his eyes. “Are you Sam?” 

The man shifted, not to move away from me, just so that he was leaning up against the door frame. I could smell the faint scent of cigarette smoke on his clothes. I was determinedly not looking at his face anymore, instead up at a spot above his head and to the right, but I could still see him look me up and down out of the corner of my eye. I wondered what I looked like to him, my old, baggy jeans, nerdy t-shirt (the white tree of Gondor), and hair that was probably pushed up on the side from leaning against the bus window.

“What’s it to you, sweetheart?” The man asked, smirking now as he had undoubtedly noticed my nervousness. I had never been good at eye contact, no matter how much I tried. 

“Uhm,” I said, sounding as unsure as I felt. “Well, I, uh, live here, now?” 

I made myself look at him when I said it and forced a smile. My siblings told me it looked creepy when I did that, the smile never reached the top half of my face, but I saw the man’s eyes crinkle, just a little, as he moved back into the room. 

“Sammy,” he called. “Your new roommate’s here.” 

I was still standing in the doorway, shifting my duffel bag on my shoulder, when a new stranger stuck his head around the open door. 

“Hi!” he said, smiling and with none of the closed off demeanor of the other one. “I’m Sam.” 

I heard rustling as he put something down before stepping fully into the doorway. He was, well, very tall. But friendly, and his smile felt open and kind. I felt myself start to untense, if only a little, and reminded myself that Anna had vouched for these people. They weren’t going to be serial killers or anything. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Sam. I’m Castiel.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” he replied, then reached out a hand to help me with my duffel bag. 

“Oh, thank you,” I said, handing it to him as my shoulders sighed in relief. 

He headed into the room and I, stiffly, followed him. It looked exactly like it had on the website: two beds with about three feet of space between them, two desks, two dressers, and two closets. It looked like you’d taken one side and photocopied it to make the other, simply reversing the image. Sam had already started to unpack some of his belongings, but there were still a couple small boxes stacked by the foot of the bed. 

“This is Dean,” he said, gesturing to the stranger now laying out across his bed, “Sorry about him, our mom tried to teach us manners, but somehow he never caught on.” 

Dean flipped him off, causing Sam to smile again as he lay my bag down on top of my bed. I followed suit, putting my duffel on top of the empty mattress and sitting down, a bit unsure of what to do now. I looked across at Dean. 

“So, you’re the one with the car?” Anna had mentioned this to me, saying that if I ever had an emergency, to ask Dean for a ride. Looking across at him now, I couldn’t picture him being someone I’d want to go to for help or someone my sister would be friends with for that matter. He looked, well, he looked like a delinquent, the poster version of one with his big boots, popped collar, and permanent smirk. 

He perked up at my question however. 

“Yeah, I’m the one with the car. Keep talking dirty to me and we’ll be friends, for sure.” 

My face flushed and I immediately found the wall quite interesting to look at. 

“Don’t get him started on his car,” Sam said as he came back out of the closet where he’d disappeared to. He slapped his brother’s feet off the end of the bed, then sat down.

“Don’t pay attention to him, Castiel,” Sam said, then paused. “Am I saying your name right?”

I nodded

“Kind of a weird name, kid,” Dean said. Sam glared at him. 

“Well, I do come from kind of a weird family,” I replied, matter of fact. “My father named us all after angels.”

They both looked at me for just a beat after that. 

“Well,” Dean said. “Angel names are a mouthful. You’re definitely getting a nickname.”

Sam sighed.

“My brother only knows how to talk in pigtail pulling and movie references, unfortunately. You’ll catch on.” 

Dean shrugged, turning his smirk back to me. 

“Oh, I’m afraid I’m not very good with movie references. My family has never owned a television.” 

The brother’s eyebrows shot up. 

“My father said it was a distraction that affected the developing brain’s mental capability,” I said, feeling myself start to ramble. 

Sam snorted. 

“Well, that definitely would explain some things about Dean.” 

Dean punched him in the arm, but his face didn’t seem upset.

“Castiel,” Dean said, scrunching his face up. “No, Cas, that’s your nickname now-Cas-”

I smiled at the way it sounded in his low voice. _Cas._ I could live with that. 

“Are you telling me,” Dean continued, bringing me out of my thoughts, “that you’ve never seen Star Wars?” 

He sounded truly horrified and Sam was paying rapt attention. 

“Uh, yes? Or, I mean, no, I haven’t seen it.” 

Dean clapped a hand over his heart and fell back onto the bed as if he’d been shot. 

“Okay, well, Cas-are you okay with Cas?”

I nodded at Sam, feeling a small smile on my face at how quickly I had been renamed. 

“We’re going to have to have a movie night. To christen our dorm room.”

I was already smiling at him, but he still added on. 

“If you want to do that, of course. No pressure, if you already have plans or anything.” 

“Uh, yes, yes I want to do that, Sam.” 

“Well,” Dean said, sitting back up. “There is no way that I’m letting Sam be the one to pop your Star Wars cherry, because he has the worst opinions. Dude, thinks Princess Leia’s bikini scene was a hate crime or something-”

“Carrie Fisher has talked about the working conditions on set and-” 

“Anyway,” Dean continued talking over his brother. “I’m going to go get the movies and the TV from my place. I’ll pick up some pizza on the way back. You two unpack and bond, or whatever.” 

He looked over at me and added. 

“Just don’t get too gay with out me, okay?” 

Then he actually winked at me and was out the door. 

I looked across at Sam and every part of my body language must have been confused, because he laughed. 

“Dean’s not homophobic or anything. He just likes to throw people off, especially when he first meets somebody. It’s just some macho-masculinity thing, he’s actually harmless. Except, he might actually kill me if he knew I’d told you that.”

I tried to pretend like I had any idea what the word “homophobic” meant, while he stood up, running a hand through his hair. It was just long enough to cover the tops of his ears and had messy bangs that I had already noticed he had a habit of messing with. 

“I’m mostly done unpacking,” he said. “If you want any help with your stuff.” 

“Oh, I’ll be okay,” I said, looking at my singular backpack and duffel bag. “I didn’t bring very much.” 

He nodded at me, smiling, and went back to whatever he had been organizing in his closet. I took that as my cue to stand up. I unzipped my bag, carefully laying the clothes out on my bed, refolding them as I went. 

“I tried not to bring too much either, but Ellen-that’s my stepmom-she kept forcing things on me. It’s like she had situational amnesia about the fact that I was only moving twenty minutes away. I have an industrial size bottle of shampoo, if you ever need any.” 

I smiled at that, not realizing that he couldn’t see me until the room got very quiet. 

“She, uh,” I started, trying to fill the silence. “She sounds like a good parent.” 

“In the most overbearing way possible, yeah.” 

“How long have she and your father been married?” I asked, immediately unsure if this was an appropriate question as soon as it had left my mouth. 

Sam chuckled. 

“Ellen and my dad were never married; that would’ve been a shitshow.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry I presumed-”

“No, no, we call her our stepmom, because it’s shorter than saying ‘the lady who adopted us after our dad died.’”

The room fell silent again as I racked my brain for the correct response, what we were told to say to parishioners whenever they had lost someone. 

“I’m sorry for your loss, Sam.” 

He snorted again. I think that meant he thought something was funny, but how could the death of a parent be funny?

“Don’t be,” he responded. “Dean and I are better off without him.” 

_Oh._ That was definitely not something I knew how to respond to. I thought of my own father, absent so much of the time anyway, leaving the raising and teaching of our younger siblings to the older ones. There was certainly resentment there, not that I ever let myself touch it, but I’m not sure I’d ever say that I would have been better off without him. 

“So, Cas-” I heard Sam’s voice from behind the closet door, mercifully breaking the silence. “Do you know what you plan on majoring in?” 

“I haven’t decided yet. Um, I’ve thought a lot about English or European Literature, but that isn’t very practical, so I’m also thinking about Environmental Science since I grew up on a farm.” 

“ _You_ grew up on a farm?”

I know he didn’t mean any offense by his emphasis and I didn’t take any. With my baggy clothes, graphic t-shirts, and thick glasses, I did look like a stereotypical nerd and distinctly not a farmer. 

“Yes,” I replied, as I finished arranging the last of my clothes in my dresser. “I was mainly in charge of our garden. It was very large, as we grew, well, still grow, as much of our food as the climate here allows. We have a couple fields for large crops, typically corn or wheat. We also keep chickens and some livestock, but my younger siblings looked after them.” 

Sam was finished with whatever he’d been doing in the closet, so when I turned back to my bed, I could see how interested he was. 

“So you’re like _a real farmer_.” 

I nodded. 

“Wow,” he replied. “I barely know how to cook for myself.” 

I gave him a small smile at that. 

“Oh, I can’t cook for myself either. Anna was usually in charge of making breakfast and dinner for us. I tried to cook oatmeal for everyone one morning after she moved out and almost caught the pan on fire.” 

He laughed at that. I sat down on my bed, directly across from him, pulling my legs up so I was sitting cross-legged. 

“You know,” Sam started. “You’ve already said more about your family than Anna ever did.” 

“Really?” I tried not to sound hurt by that, because, I reminded myself, I was already aware that Anna was ashamed of us, of how differently we grew up. 

“Yeah, she would talk about her siblings sometimes, uh, a lot about you, actually-”

I looked down at the floor, feeling my ears get pink. I didn’t ask what she’d said about me, even though I desperately wanted to know. Or maybe I didn’t. I had always been the “weird little brother.” 

“- but she never talked about your family or her life before college. It never felt like she was hiding anything. She just made sure it never came up.” 

I almost chuckled at that; that did sound like Anna. She never directly lied, but she was a big fan of omission and an expert at steering conversations when she wanted to be. I didn’t say any of that, though. It felt too revealing of her. 

“I didn’t realize that you knew my sister so well.”

“Huh,” he said, tilting his head. “I guess that’s not so surprising after her and Jo-well, how badly that all turned out, but for a while, she’d come over for dinner every weekend.” 

Oh. She _knew_ these people. Why hadn’t she told me that? 

“Is Joe your brother?” I asked, instead of what I wanted to. 

“Sister,” he replied, smiling fondly. “She’s Ellen’s daughter, a few months younger than me, but the smartest out of all of us.”

“Oh, so how did she meet my sister, if she isn’t in college yet?” I asked, trying to fill in the blanks that Anna had left. She really hadn’t wanted to tell me how she’d met these people, but the way she’d skirted around it just made me assume it was through classes. Typical Anna. 

Sam hesitated, just enough that I knew he was deciding what to tell me. 

“She and Dean met first, actually, when he was still taking classes here.” 

I was confused by that. Dean had to be about two years older than my sister, three years older than me. 

“They were in the same class?” 

“Yeah,” Sam said, running a hand through his hair. “She, uh, probably never told you about it, because it was a remedial class, highschool level. God, I feel like maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, but she had to take a lot of those when she got here. She hated talking about it and took a huge course load so that she could finish all of them and not fall behind the other freshmen.” 

That didn’t make any sense at all. Anna was smart. We all were smart-well, except maybe Gabe, but, even then, I always sort of thought that was from lack of effort instead of ability. 

“So, Anna met your brother in a ‘remedial’ class?” I asked, clarifying.

“Yeah, uh, I think it was some sort of math? Dean could never be bothered to pay attention to that in school. Honestly, I think that class was what drove him to finally drop out. He never really wanted to be here anyway.” 

I tried not to indulge my overdramatic tendencies, reminding myself to not get too into my head; there was a person here and we were in the middle of a conversation, but it felt like my perception of the world had been tilted on its axis. Why didn’t Anna tell me about that? When I thought back to her first semester, I do remember her always seeming stressed and rushed, like she was constantly on her way to somewhere else. I remembered the bags under her eyes when she’d come home for Christmas, then left the morning after. Honestly, I’d just thought that was what college was like. Sure, Gabe and Michael hadn’t been like that, but, well, they were Gabe and Michael. 

“So, uh,” I elegantly said, searching for a subject change. “What does Dean plan to do then, since he won’t be getting a degree?” 

“Ellen runs Harvelle’s, it’s the roadhouse on the outskirts of town, and Dean has always loved that place.” 

Sam’s face had gone fond as he talked about his family; it reminded me of how I felt when I talked about my siblings, that mix of pride and familiarity and a hint of exasperation. I’d honestly thought our closeness was just a byproduct of growing up so isolated, just us and our fifty acres and a half hour drive to the nearest small town, but I liked seeing it reflected in Sam. It made me feel like maybe we could really be friends. 

“Jo was always supposed to take it over one day,” Sam continued. “But as soon as she revealed that she had no interest in ever running it, and once the storm cleared from the massive fight she and Ellen had over it, Dean jumped on the opportunity. He bartends there part-time now, but Ellen will show him the ropes once he’s a little older.” 

“Oh, so it’s a family business?” 

Sam nodded. 

“That must be nice for him, to have a legacy,” I continued, trying hard not to think of mine, about how my father honestly didn’t care if I did get a degree in something “impractical” like European Literature, because the plan was always for me to go to seminary after this anyway. 

Sam surprised me by snorting at that, his half-laugh I was realizing. 

“Yeah,” he said, albeit good naturedly. “Our family legacy _is_ a dive on the outskirts of town.” 

I tilted my head at him, confused, but he waved me off. 

“It’s fitting, that’s all.” 

I didn’t know what to make of that. 

The silence started to hang between us again. 

“What are you majoring in, Sam?” 

That perked him up. 

“Oh, I’m pre-law.” 

I looked at the shaggy-haired, gangly boy across from me appraisingly. He had a baby face if I’d ever seen one, dimples and all. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, indeed.

“I can major in anything for that, so I haven’t decided either. I’m thinking History, maybe Anthropology, or even, uh, Religious Studies.” 

He looked a little bashful about the last one and, at first, it made me think he’d heard of my father’s reputation, but, no, he’d said that Anna never talked about our family and, really, no one heard about Chuck Shurley outside of, well, rather small, rather fringe, Christian circles. 

“Those all sound like interesting choices,” I replied, instead of poking further. 

“That’s what I thought,” he grinned. “I’m hoping to take classes in all of them this year, so I can decide. I’m taking an Anthropology course focusing on the cave dwellers of early Europe this semester and an Intro to Christian Theology, so I just need to find a History course for next semester.” 

I nodded, doing my best to look supportive and not like taking a theology course was my idea of an actual nightmare. It’s not that I had any problem with God, I got along with Him just fine, it was just that so much of my life had been like a theology course gone horribly, horribly wrong. 

I checked my watch absentmindedly, wondering what exactly we were supposed to do until Dean got back. It looked like it had only been about half an hour. I was not used to spending this large of an amount of time trying to make conversation. I gave Sam a stiff smile, trying to think what else it was that people who've just met were supposed to talk about. 

Sam smiled back. I wondered if he was experiencing a similar thought process to mine. The silence stretching between us began to suggest that he was. 

“Um, I’m going to,” I stammered, pointing to the door. “Go to the bathroom.” 

Sam nodded, giving me a smile as I ducked out of the room. I said a silent prayer of thanks for bathrooms being universally available for hiding out in. Not that I needed to hide, but I did need a moment to breathe. I was having to experience too many new things at once and I could tell that my “normal person” facade was starting to slip. 

I liked Sam just fine, so far. He seemed kind and easygoing and like he was probably a good listener. I liked that his family had been there for Anna, in whatever way it was that she’d needed them. But I was fundamentally a bit strange and also very bad at interacting with people. I sighed as I walked through the bathroom doors. I could only pretend for so long. 

Unless, I thought, I reached a point where I wasn’t pretending. College is all about reinvention, I reminded myself, hearing Gabe’s voice in my head. Even Anna had said it, in her own way, that college was going to “bring me out of my shell.” What if I liked it in my shell? What if I liked being wrapped up in my own world, away from other people’s opinions and judgements? What if I liked being weird? What then? 

I tried not to let the irritation from that thought process linger. I washed my hands and splashed a little water on my face for good measure. I grabbed a paper towel meant for my hands and rubbed it all over my face to dry it, leaving my glasses resting precariously on top of the sink. It’s not even been a full day yet, I reminded myself. You don’t need to figure all of this out yet. Tonight, you can be “Cas” and watch some sci-fi with your new roommate who you think might turn into a friend and his brother who, well, intimidates you quite a bit. 

Dean was different than anyone I’d met, so far, but maybe that did just prove how “sheltered” I had been. Maybe college was full of boys with unsettling green eyes who flirted a little bit with everyone they met. I’d known he wasn’t serious, but he had been flirting, right? I think I knew enough to know that, but also I’d never been flirted with before. I briefly thought about asking Anna about it, what I usually did when I didn’t understand something, but then remembered that she and Dean were actual _friends_. That definitely wasn’t an option and what did it matter anyway? 

It crossed my mind that maybe Anna and Dean had dated. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to tell me about how they met. I was surprised to find I hoped that wasn’t true. 

Hands and face dry, I headed back to the room, racking my brain for more conversation subjects. I opened the door, so far having come up with “what are your hobbies?” “do you have any favorite books?” and “do you have any friends here yet?” which weren’t exactly winners, but they would do. 

I was surprised to see that Sam was on the phone when I entered the room. 

“Hey, Cas-” he said, lowering the phone from his ear, “what kind of pizza do you like?” 

“Oh,” I said, thinking. We had weekly pizza nights at home, but we made it ourselves, using ingredients from the garden mostly. I wasn’t sure what the options were for pizza places. “Umm, cheese?” 

Sam nodded. “Just plain cheese?” 

“Oh, I also like... vegetables?”

Sam nodded again. 

“And tomato sauce?” 

Sam smiled at that.

“How do you feel about sausage?”

“Uh, generally positively?” 

“Cool. Usually when we order pizza, Dean gets a meat lovers and I order a supreme.” 

“Supreme?” 

“It has a bunch of toppings, peppers and mushrooms and olives.” 

“That sounds good to me,” I replied, happy he’d thrown me a line. 

“But we can also just do plain cheese if you want.” 

“No, no, I like vegetables. I’m the gardener, remember.” 

I hoped that the smile I gave him wasn’t creepy. I was never quite sure what the line was, but he smiled back and raised the phone back to his ear. 

“Okay-” Sam said, then, “Ha. Ha. Yes, we reached a decision. Just the usual two. No, I did not pressure him, Dean. Normal people like vegetables.” 

He caught my eyes and rolled his eyes. It caught me off guard and made me laugh, just a small laugh, but it was the first time I’d laughed all day. I felt just a bit of the tension leave my shoulders. 

“Uh huh, yeah, of course we will. Love you too, Dean,” he said with biting sarcasm, before hanging up. 

I looked at him, head tilted, obviously a little confused by the end of their conversation. 

“Just wait,” he said, sitting back down on the bed. “After a month of Dean, you’ll get used to him and probably after two months you’ll start talking to him like that, too.” 

I thought of those green eyes again, looking me up and down and the smirk that followed, wolfish. I’d felt like, if we were in a fairytale, I was the red riding hood type and he was about to eat me right up. 

“I highly doubt that.” 

“Oh, I don’t,” Sam said, goodnaturedly. “Dean can get under anyone’s skin. It’s his specialty, but it’s also weirdly endearing, not that I would ever tell him that, because then he would _never_ shut up.” 

I smiled. How Sam talked about Dean reminded me of how I talked about Gabe. 

“It sounds like he would get along with my brother,” I said. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “It sounds like they both can be-” I searched for a better word, but ultimately failed. Well, I thought, you’re in college now, Castiel, you can curse if you want to. “-complete assholes sometimes, but you still love them.” 

Sam laughed and I liked that feeling, having made him laugh. 

“Exactly,” he replied. 

I let the silence hang for just a moment, before going back to the list that I’d made earlier. 

“So….do you have any hobbies?” I asked, playing it as a joke this time. 

I was rewarded with a laugh. 

* * *

Sam got a text from Dean about twenty minutes later saying to come downstairs to help him carry things. Sam practically took the stairs three at a time on the way down and I was, once again, astounded by his height. I certainly wasn’t short, but he was something else. He held the door open for me with a flourish once we reached the bottom floor and I found myself laughing and relaxing a little bit more. 

The tension all came back however when I caught sight of Dean, waiting for us in the parking lot, leaning against a sleek, black muscle car with a lit cigarette hanging limply off of his bottom lip. He took a drag off of it before he spotted us and his face lit up in a grin. I was surprised when Sam raced across the distance between us, until I saw him try to slap the, still burning, cigarette from Dean’s outstretched hand. 

“Hey!” Dean exclaimed, trying to keep it away from his much taller brother, with no success.

“Those things are literal poison, Dean.” 

“And?” 

“And. You aren’t James Dean. You promised me you were going to quit.”

I slowly walked up as Dean grumbled something that sounded like: “fine, fine” and “new year’s resolution” and “at least I’d down to only a couple a day, Sammy.” 

Sam didn’t look anything like a “Sammy” to me, but I did think it was sweet, if uncharacteristically sentimental, of Dean to call him that. 

“Hey, Cas,” Dean said, turning his, I believe the term is, “shit-eating grin” to me. “Sorry, my kid brother pressured you into the grossest pizza.” 

“Oh, no,” I said “I like vegetables.” 

“He’s a gardener, Dean,” Sam said, like that meant something.

“Well, to each their own, I guess.” Dean said, looking at me appraisingly. “You’re in charge of carrying the pizza, Cas. Sammy and I will get the TV stuff.” 

I nodded. 

“Are you ready to have your mind blown by the beauty of pure space opera excellence?” 

“Um, truthfully,” I replied, dead serious. “Probably not.” 

Dean laughed at that, teeth gleaming and eyes closed, laughter. I felt my own mouth turn up, subconsciously in response. I _liked_ making him laugh. It made him seem like a little kid somehow. 

Sam merely looked on, half fond-half exasperated. 

“That’s a good answer, bud. Nobody can truly be ready to experience this magnificence for the first time.” 

“Okay, okay,” Sam said, butting in. “Don’t get his expectations too high. They’re sci fi movies from the eighties.” 

“This is exactly why I said that you couldn’t watch these movies with just Sam. He has no respect for the classics!” 

Sam snorted. 

“Says the guy who has never enjoyed watching anything outside of the science fiction and fantasy section.” 

“Hey, I watched _Fight Club_ that one time. I liked _Fight Club_.” 

“I’m not sure that counts.” 

“Oh? And why not?” 

“You know exactly why not.” 

Dean rolled his eyes, finally breaking. 

“Okay, yeah, it’s because Tyler Durden is hot, fine.”

“Exactly.” 

Sam laughed in triumph and Dean turned away from him. I didn’t understand any part of that conversation, but I could've sworn that Dean’s cheeks were the slightest bit pink as he turned back towards me. 

Sam started rummaging around in the backseat trying to find the best way to pick up the TV. Dean took this opportunity to walk closer to me. 

“Cas, this is Baby,” he said, nudging me closer to the car. “Baby, this is Cas.” 

“You named your car… Baby?” I asked. 

“Uh, yeah.” Dean said it like it was obvious. “It’s because I built her from the ground up. She’s basically my Baby.” 

I nodded solemnly, because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought about my tomato plants that I’d nursed from seedlings, through aphid attacks and the hot, dry summers; It wasn’t a perfect analogy, but I guess I could understand. 

Sam stood back up, pulling an old, boxy television out of the back. 

“Don’t get him started on the Impala. He will literally never stop talking.” 

“The Impala?” I said. 

Sam groaned as Dean lit up. 

“I’m so glad you asked, Cas. Baby is a 1967 Chevy Impala, the best year of the best car. She was our dad’s first, but he left her sitting out back in a field for a few years. I had to track down a bunch of parts that aren’t in production anymore to rebuild her, which is why it took me so long. Good thing, I work at a mechanic, so I had access to all the tools and ordering systems.” 

“Oh, cool,” I replied, because that’s what you say when someone is excited about something that you know nothing at all about. 

Maybe I did see what Sam was saying about me getting used to him. He grinned at my response and I noticed his dimples and rethought that as my nerves jumped back into my stomach. What was it about this guy that was so anxiety-inducing, I wondered. 

“Um,” I continued, feeling the urge to start babbling. “I thought Sam said you worked as a bartender?” 

“Yeah, that’s my other job,” he replied, reaching into the backseat of the Impala and coming out with two pizza boxes, which he passed to me. I took them from him stiffly, careful not to touch his hands on the bottom of the boxes. 

“I’m sure that’s nice,” I replied. 

He chuckled. 

“I’m not sure that most people would call bartending at Harvelle’s nice, but, yeah, I like it.” 

We caught eyes for just a second after he closed the Impala’s door, VCR tapes in his hands. I quickly broke the eye contact and looked down at the ground. 

“You fishing for free drinks, Cas?” Dean asked, grinning. 

“Oh, no, I would never presume-” I stammered, before finishing awkwardly: “I’ve never had alcohol.” 

“Oh, well, aren’t you a saint.” 

Dean clapped a hand on my shoulder. 

I know my ears must have turned bright red and I probably looked like a deer in the headlights. Sam cleared his throat at us. 

“This TV isn’t the lightest thing in the world, guys.” 

I hadn’t noticed that he was already heading back to our hall’s doors. 

Dean, mercifully, let his hand slide from my shoulder, and half-jogged to catch up with Sam. I followed suit, careful not to shift the pizzas too much, no doubt looking much more awkward than he had. We took the elevator up to our floor and soon we were all piling into our dorm room, which was feeling much smaller than it had earlier, with three boys and one television set. 

Dean set it up on top of Sam’s bed while Sam shuffled around in his closet, miraculously coming out with a stack of paper plates. 

“Ellen truly sent me everything,” he said with a grin. 

“Lucky for us,” Dean replied. 

I liked how easy they were with each other. It made me feel slightly more at ease with myself. Dean assembled a small pile of pieces on his plate before clambering onto my bed. He made himself comfortable in one of the corners. I grabbed two slices, then looked around, unsure of what the seating protocol was in this situation. It seemed like one of those things that they obviously already knew. Dean saw the hesitation on my face and patted the mattress beside him. 

“Come on,” he said, around a mouthful of pizza. Mercifully, he swallowed before continuing. “Sammy’s gonna sit on the floor. His legs are too long for up here.” 

I nodded and carefully climbed onto the bed. I made sure there was as much space between us as was possible, which, honestly, was not very much on the twin size. If Dean noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. 

“Okay, Cas,” he said. “We’re going to set up some ground rules here, so that you can have an optimum Skywalker experience.”

“What’s a Skywalker?” I asked, not noticing until after that I’d tilted my head. Anna and Gabe always teased me about that. 

“Good question, Cas,” Dean replied, in a voice that I can only imagine is what a kindergarten teacher sounds like. “And an excellent example of our first rule: no talking, unless Cas has a question. If he does, I will be the one to answer it, not Sam.” 

“You’re ridiculous. You do know that right?” 

Sam turned around in his seat on the floor so that he could glare at his brother. 

“I don’t make the rules,” Dean replied, holding his hands up in fake surrender. 

Sam rolled his eyes and turned back around. 

“Is that the only rule?” I asked, probably too earnestly. Part of my brain recognized that Dean was joking, but there was another part that was saying that maybe he wasn’t and maybe this was just another thing that I had never learned. 

“It’s the most important one,” Dean replied, smiling at me. “The other rule is that if anybody falls asleep, we get to draw whatever we want on their face with sharpies.” 

“Oh.” 

“Dean,” Sam replied, sternly. “We are not doing that.” 

“Oh? Mad because somebody fell asleep the last time we were having a western marathon.”

“I was tired because I’d been studying for the SATs and then I had to go take the test with a faded dick on my face!” 

I watched this exchange, silently, eating my pizza. 

“It’s rule number two, Sammy.”

“You made up the rules right now, Dean.”

Sam turned and smacked Dean’s leg, but I knew there was no real anger in him. I may not know much about people, but I know more than my fairshare about siblings. I did grow up the middle child of seven. 

“Okay, okay,” Dean said, smiling and mock-defeated. “There’s only one rule, Cas. Also Luke Skywalker is the main character, you’ll see.” 

I nodded. 

“Now, if you would do the honors, Sam.”

I didn’t need to see Sam’s face to know that he had rolled his eyes at him, but he grabbed the remote and the TV screen lit up. It was all black, but soon yellow letters started to scroll up from the bottom of the scene. 

“Wait, real rule number two,” Dean said. “Somebody _has_ to read the intro and tonight it is going to be me.” 

He made a big show of clearing his throat, before continuing in a deeper, dramatic voice: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away-” 

Somehow, I found myself looking down at Sam. We smiled at each other, his eyes clearing saying “can you believe this dork?” I shook my head at him, then looked back over at Dean, still narrating. 

It was hard to reconcile that the guy sitting on my bed, saying lines that me might actually have memorized in a funny voice, was the same one who’d answered the door earlier and stared me down or the same one who’d been leaning against his muscle car with the collar of his coat turned up smoking a cigarette. I thought once again, maybe Sam was right, maybe I could get used to this. I hoped so. It seemed really nice so far. 

I guess I must have been staring at Dean as I thought about all of this, because he nudged me with his knee. 

“Come on, Cas, it’s starting. The opening shot is iconic”

“The opening shot is basically of a cardboard cutout.” 

“Rule number one, Sam!” 

Sam was less than thrilled, but I found myself thankful for the rules as the movie went on. I _did_ end up having lots of questions. The brothers had an answer for all of them.


	2. Chapter 2

“So,” I asked, stifling a yawn. “When Luke cuts off the head of Darth Vader in the cave-”

“It’s just a dream or a vision, yeah. It’s supposed to be a manifestation of his fears-”

“About turning to the dark side, like his father.”

“Exactly.” 

I pondered that for a minute, longer than I would have if I hadn’t only gotten four hours of sleep the night before. 

“That seems a bit, um, well, like they could have explained that further.” 

Sam chuckled. We were making our way to the dining hall for breakfast, which is also the only reason we were awake before 9:30 after staying up until somewhere past 4am. 

“Yeeahhh, they could have. I had no idea what was happening the first time I watched it.” 

“When you were five?” I asked, but it wasn’t a real question. Dean kept bringing up how many years they’d been watching the movies for last night. 

“When I was five,” Sam agreed with a knowing smile. 

The dining hall loomed before us. 

I could hear the clamor of voices and plates and utensils spilling out from the doors and everything inside of me began to tense. I didn’t like loud noises and I didn’t like crowded places and everyone in there sounded so excited and like they knew exactly what they were doing and where they belonged and I definitely needed to stop this train of thought before Sam saw how much of a crisis I was starting to have over this. 

“Hey, you okay?” He asked.

I had come to a stop about five feet in front of the doors apparently. 

“Yeah!” I answered fake cheerily. 

He gave me a look that told me he wasn’t buying it. Probably because my face and body language was telling a completely different story. 

“Uh, it sounds loud in there and, uh, I have a headache?” I lied. 

“Let’s get you some coffee, then,” he said, leading the way into the room. “And we can find a quiet corner. I came here a few times to visit Dean and it’s really not that bad once you get used to it.” 

Unfortunately for me, the getting used to it part was what I was worried about. There were some things I was good at acclimating to, but new environments and loud noises were firmly not in that category. It could take me months to get used to new things, if I ever did. 

I followed Sam in, anyway, perhaps too close behind him, but he  _ was  _ tall and that meant it was a little like putting a wall between myself and the energy of the room. I almost ran into him, when he paused to let a group of girls pass, and I couldn’t help but hear Gabe’s voice in my head telling me to “just not be weird.” I backed off a little bit. 

The room was more open than I’d expected it to be from the outside. The tables were evenly spaced out, the ones furthest from the food remaining relatively empty. Sam was heading towards the coffee machines and I trailed behind him. Most people were already sitting down, talking with their companions, having already eaten, so I was able to pretend, somewhat effectively, that most of them weren’t there. This worked especially well if I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the floor or the ceiling. 

I didn’t have the brainspace, between all of this, to tell Sam that I didn’t actually drink coffee. We just never had it at the house and I liked tea just fine. I felt obligated to drink it now, since I hadn’t mentioned it before. If so many people liked it, surely it couldn’t be so bad. Sam handed me a cup, splashing a little bit of milk from one of the cartons into his own. I followed suit. Maybe I’d find out that I liked it. 

Sam took a big sip from his cup, bravely ignoring the temperature. He turned around, so that he was facing the rest of the hall and began pointing out the different stations to me. I shuffled closer to him, so that I could hear him better despite the background noise. He smelled like pine trees I noticed. I liked that; it reminded me of back home. 

“Okay,” he said, finishing his explanation. “Let’s divide and conquer and then meet back at that table over there.” 

He was pointing to one in the far back of the room. It was practically tucked into a little alcove and looked isolated and perfect. I nodded to him, pushing up my glasses when the movement caused them to slide, and braced myself.

I patiently waited in line and grabbed my tray. I decided to start with the fruit, grabbing an orange and some berries. I eyed the waffle machine and the station with the man making pancakes, advertised as a “special treat” for move-in weekend, before quickly deciding they were too intimidating for my first day. I looked around to find where Sam had pointed out the oatmeal and managed to absentmindedly turn right into someone else. 

Mercifully, my fruit stayed far away in it’s little bowl, but my coffee mug, already precariously full, had splashed about half of its contents all over her black shirt. I looked up and found myself looking at a face that turned from furious to intrigued after our eyes met. 

“I’m so sorry,” I stammered, searching around for napkins to hand to her. “I didn’t see you. I should’ve been paying more attention to where I was going. I-uh-I’m so sorry.” 

_ Way to mess up your first time, Castiel, _ I thought. 

The girl surprised me by laughing. It wasn’t a big laugh, it was short, but genuine. 

“Woah, there nerd boy,” she said, somehow making it sound like it wasn’t an insult. “Happens to everybody, sometimes.” 

She looked down at her shirt, pulling it away from her body and up a little, brushing it off. I saw a flash of her stomach and quickly looked away and back up to her face and actually saw it this time.  _ Oh.  _ She was pretty, I realized, ears no doubt immediately turning red. 

“Well,” she said, continuing her thought. “Everybody, but me. I’m Meg.” 

I gave her my best normal person smile. 

“Uh, hi,” I said. “I’m-” I hesitated, trying to decide whether to introduce myself as “Castiel” or my new nickname. 

She raised her eyebrow at me. Her eyes were deep brown and mischievous. 

“Cat got your tongue?” 

“Oh, no-” I realized how my pause must have looked to her, like I’d somehow forgotten my own name. Stupid. “I’m C-”

“Wait!” She interrupted me dramatically. “Don’t tell me, I want to try to guess.” 

“Oh,” my turn to be surprised. “Okay?”

“It starts with a “C”?”

I nodded. 

She took a moment to think, brushing her hair out of her face. 

“Hmmm Charles, Christopher, Carter?”

I shook my head. She smiled.

“Good, every ‘Christopher’ I’ve ever met has been a massive dick.” 

She went back to her exaggerated thinking for a moment. I stood there, in front of the fruit, feeling very much in everyone’s way. 

“Hmmm, how about Colin or Cory or Clarence?”

I shook my head.

“Are you sure?” She asked. “Because I think I really like Clarence.”

I shook my head again. Her voice sounded like she might be teasing me, but I wasn’t sure. 

She looked me up and down again, then sighed. 

“Fine. What’s your name then, blue eyes?” 

I smiled at her then, a real smile if a small one. She had quite an energy about her. 

“Unfortunately, it’s a very hard one to guess. It’s nice to meet you, Meg. I’m Castiel.” 

Her eyebrows raised at that.

“Cassiel?” she asked. 

“Castiel,” I corrected. “Or, um, maybe just Cas.” 

“Well, no offense, but I think I might just stick with Clarence,” she said and I could’ve sworn she winked at me, but that couldn’t be right. 

We stood there for a beat, looking at each other, me with my tray of fruit, the coffee slowly drying on her shirt. It was starting to almost feel like a staring contest and I surprised myself by being the one to break the silence.   
“Well, I’d better-” I motioned vaguely over my shoulder at the oatmeal station that I had originally headed to. 

“Okay, Clarence,” she replied, smirking. “But, I think you owe me for the shirt. I think it might be ruined.” 

I felt my stomach drop all the way to the floor. I took a deep breath and was about to apologize again when she continued. 

“How about you buy  _ me _ a coffee sometime? I think that’d make up for it.” 

I blinked at her, probably looking like a deer in the headlights. 

She laughed. 

“What? You never been asked out on a date before?” 

“Um, well, actually, no.” 

Her eyebrows raised and her smirk deepened. 

“Well, I guess I won’t expect you to put out then.” 

My confusion deepened as she continued to smile. 

“Here,” she said, surprising me by grabbing my arm. She miraculously had a pen in her other hand and began to write numbers on my skin. “Lucky for you, I have a thing for awkward nerdy dudes, much to my friend’s chagrin. This is my phone number. Text me at it.” 

“Okay,” I said. My brain definitely had not caught up to what was happening yet. It was still stuck back somewhere with “pretty girl smiling at me.” 

“Okay,” she said, with finality. “See you later, Clarence.” 

With that she was gone and I was left to walk over to the oatmeal in a daze. My coffee was thoroughly cold by this point and, since I was committed to drinking it, I topped off my cup before heading towards Sam and our decided table. 

“Dude,” he said as soon as I approached. “What was that?” 

I shrugged, still unsure, showing him the number scribbled on my forearm in dark ink as an answer. 

“She gave you her number?” Sam exclaimed. 

“And, um, asked me out on a date,” I said, sheepishly. 

“What?” 

I sat down, finally, and nodded my confirmation. Sam looked over at me, almost as much in shock as I was. 

“No offense, dude, but how did that happen?”

“I honestly have no idea. I ran into her and spilled coffee onto her shirt and then she called me ‘Clarence’ and wrote on my arm.” 

“Day two of college and you already have a date lined up? Dean is going to lose it when we tell him about this.” 

I looked back at him, concerning welling up now that the shock had worn off. 

“Well, I might not go. I don’t know anything about this girl and a date is sort of serious.” 

Sam snorted. 

“Not if you don’t want it to be, just ask Dean,” He said, with a bit of snark in his voice. “Or your sister.” 

I looked at him, brow furrowed, but he waved my wordless request for an explanation off. 

“On a serious note,” he said, taking another sip of coffee. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, of course you don’t, but she was pretty, Cas. Like really pretty.” 

I nodded. This was true. 

I hesitated about telling him what I was about to, but figured he would learn the truth sooner or later, so I might as well. Sam didn’t seem like the type to make fun of me for it, especially since Meg hadn’t a few minutes earlier. And she  _ had  _ seemed like the type to make fun of me because of it. 

“I’ve never been on a date before.” I said it all at once if a little mumbled; I wanted to pull off the band-aid. 

“Huh,” he said, looking considerate. “Nobody too interesting on the farm?” 

“I’m related to everyone who lives on the farm. I couldn’t exactly date someone from the church either, not that I ever wanted to.”

“Church?” Sam perked up. 

Oh, I hadn’t meant to talk about that. 

“Um, yeah my father is, well, he’s a pastor. So we went to church.”

Surprisingly, Sam was smiling. 

“That’s cool, Cas. I go to church, too. It’s not a family thing for me, though. Or, well, my mom went-” he looked away from me “-but, uh, I was too young to remember any of that. Dean even comes on holidays.”

I raised my eyebrows at that. Dean Winchester in a church, an interesting picture. 

“Your family never all went together?” I asked. 

Church and family were so bound up in each other for me. I couldn’t imagine it any other way. 

Sam shook his head. 

“No, my dad went with my mom when she was alive, but after-” he paused. “After my mom, I didn’t go to church until I was old enough to go on my own. Sometimes I could get him to drop me off, if it was pouring or there was too much snow to walk through, but usually not.” 

Silence fell between us and It was obvious his mind was somewhere else as he drank his coffee. I remembered our only other conversation about his family.  _ We’re better off without him _ , he’d said. I couldn’t help but wonder how old he was when his father had died, how it had happened. I knew I couldn’t ask any of that, though. I’d only known this boy for a day. I ate some of my cooling oatmeal instead. 

I should’ve said something, though, because the next question out of Sam’s mouth was: “So, Cas, what kind of church is it that you go to?”

If we had been any other family, this would have been a perfectly innocuous thing to ask.

“Um, it’s a little complicated.”

Sam nodded encouragingly. I remembered him saying that he was considering being a religious studies major. I was not going to be getting off the hook.

“It’s, uh… Protestant?”

“So like non-denominational?”

“Yeah,” I said, relieved. “Like that.”

More nods. 

“What kind do you attend?” I asked and if he noticed how quickly I jumped on the opportunity to change the subject, he didn’t show it. 

“Episcopal,” he replied, smiling. “My mom, she was catholic and I went to those services for a while, but when I got older and uh-” he said the next bit all in a rush “I realized I was bisexua,l and some other things about the church, and I switched.” 

He looked at me after he said it. I nodded, like he had at me, and added “bisexual” to the list of words to ask Anna about during our phone call later. 

“Faith and, uh, expressions of faith often change throughout our lives,” I said, ignoring how much the words sounded like Michael’s as they came out of my mouth. 

He looked at me and his eyes had softened a little around the edges, like I’d passed some kind of test I didn’t even know was occurring. 

“Yeah, that’s true,” he replied. 

We finished what was left of our breakfasts in silence, neither of us feeling the need to break the silence nor knowing what else we would talk about. I drank a little more of my coffee. I liked it, I decided; it  _ was _ more bitter than tea, but it had a depth to the flavor as well. I also liked how it seemed like it banished some of my grogginess with each sip. 

Sam showed me where you returned the trays and we headed back to our room. I exhaled when we left the dining hall, as tension left my shoulders. We had to pass through a section of the quad and I realized that the wind was starting to blow colder already. Fall was coming quickly for us.

Sam said he was going to take a long nap, so I excused myself after we got back, grabbing an old flannel and heading back out into the slight chill. I’d seen a tree on our way back and, I noticed happily, there still weren’t any people around it. I sat down, resting my back against the trunk, and called my sister. 

It rang for just long enough for me to get worried that she wasn’t going to pick up.

“Castiel!” I heard her say. The knot that had started in my stomach immediately dissipated. “I was hoping you’d call.”

“Hi, Anna,” I replied, then, because I couldn’t help it. “How’s Ohio?”

“Oh, you know, exactly how I pictured it.” 

“Lots of cornfields?”

“Lots of cornfields.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “But I didn’t move here for the scenery.”

Right, I remembered. Her classes had started a week earlier than mine. 

“How are classes so far?”

“Good,” she said quickly, then- “hard, but I would be disappointed if they weren’t.”

“You do like a challenge.” 

“Well, if I’m going to pay thousands of dollars for an education, I at least want it to be  _ hard _ .”

“Hmm, last I remembered you had a full scholarship.” 

“Whatever,” she said laughing. “How come I’m the only one you ever get smart with?”

I smiled, even though she couldn't see it. 

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “You just have a way of bringing it out in me.”

“Being a little shit?”

I chuckled. 

“You sound like Gabe now.”

“Hey! How come you aren’t a little shit to Gabe. He at least deserves it.”

“Because he’s full of more than enough shit for the two of us.”

“Castiel!” she said, pretending to be scandalized. “College is changing you already.” 

Something inside me flinched at that. There was something about how excited everyone seemed when they said that, it was starting to really grate on me. 

Maybe she sensed it, or maybe she just picked up on my silence, because she changed the subject.

“How are Sam and Dean? Are you getting along?”

“So far, we’re getting along fine. Sam is….nice. I like him, a lot. Dean is-” I paused, unsure of what to say about him. Dean was fine? Dean was intimidating me one second and fake quizzing about the events of a Star Wars movie as the credits rolled the next?

“Dean is Dean?” She offered.

“Yes,” I replied. 

“He’ll warm up to you eventually. I’m sure he’s being grumpy and standoffish now, but it’s just a front. Trust me. It’s this whole thing with him.”

“Grumpy and standoffish” were not how I’d describe Dean’s attitude toward me right now, but I’m not sure  _ how  _ I would describe it. I decided not to bring it up; I’d just met the man. 

“People keep telling me that,” I said. 

“Sam?” She asked. 

I nodded, forgetting, again, that she couldn't see it.

“He has a tendency of apologizing for him. I mean, Sam’s the only one who really understands why he’s like that, what they’ve been through, but, somehow, he came out of all of it more well-adjusted than Dean.”

“What they’ve been through?” I asked, indulging my curiosity. 

“Yeah, with their mom dying when they were so young, then losing their dad when they were teenagers. They were on their own for a while after that, before Ellen took them in, and that’s probably more than I should have told you about it already; it took me a year to learn even that. If you want to know more about it, you’ll have to ask them. Although,” she added, hastily. “ if you haven’t noticed already, they don’t like to talk about it, so don’t actually ask.” 

“I wasn’t planning on it, don’t worry.” 

“Just wanted to make sure.” 

I often walked the line between irritated and thankful for Anna. She knew me better than anyone, which meant she knew my “quirks,” as she called them. Sometimes she’d overcompensate for them, explain something to me that I didn’t need explained or tell me not to say something that I obviously wouldn’t say. But I also couldn’t count how many times she’d saved me, whispering a parishioners name to me in church when they headed over to say hello, answering all of my questions, always, about everything and I had always had a lot of questions, even standing up for me the times I’d said something a little too weird and some kids, or sometimes even Gabe or Michael, started to make fun of me for it. 

I wasn’t a child and I hated it when she slipped into treating me like one, even though I knew she didn’t mean to. I also knew that she’d been a lifeline for me and I was the sort of person who needed one of those. 

“Have you met anyone else yet?” She asked, hesitantly. 

“I’ve been here for less than 24 hours, Anna,” I laughed. 

“I’m just excited for you to make friends!”

Then I remembered one of the main reasons for my call. 

“Actually,” I began, feeling hesitant myself now. “I did meet someone at breakfast this morning. Well, I didn’t meet her so much as I spilled half a cup of coffee onto her and apologized, probably too many times-” I was fully babbling now- “but she was very nice about it and then, uh, and then she, uh, wrote her phone number on my hand and she, she, said that I should text her and ask her out for coffee.”

Anna made an indistinguishable noise on the other end of the phone. 

“Oh my god! Castiel!”

I could feel my face getting warm despite the chill of the wind. I resituated how I was sitting, moving my back on the tree trunk. 

“Was she pretty?” She continued. “Have you texted her yet?” Then- “Well, if you even want to go, of course. I could see that being uncomfortable.” 

I took a deep breath. Anna, knowing me, let the line go silent. 

“She was very pretty,” I said, factually. “And I don’t see why I wouldn’t go. Embracing new experiences and all that, right?” 

She laughed, but I could tell it was out of happiness, not at me. 

“Um,” I continued. “That was one of the reasons that I called, actually. I guess, well, I don't know anything about dates and, uh, I’m assuming you do-”

“You wanted to ask me what you do on a date?” She interrupted.

“No,” I said, knowing I sounded a little irritated. “I’m not twelve, I get what happens on dates, Anna. Gabe has given me more play-by-plays than I ever wanted. I actually wanted to ask you what your first date was like. I guess, I just realized that you never really talked about it, but I know that you were dating because Gabe talked about it sometimes.”

“God, I don’t want to know what Gabe said about me dating,” she said, voice light. It didn’t hide the tinge of nervousness that had come into her voice. 

“Far better things than he said about his own habits,” I assured her. “And in far less, um, explicit detail.” 

She snorted. 

“He sure has a way with words, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he can paint quite the visual image.” 

She gave me a real laugh for that, but she was just humoring me. I could tell her mind was still elsewhere. 

“You don’t have to tell me about it, if you don’t want to,” I offered, maybe it was a bad memory for her. “My intention was not to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, no, Castiel, you didn’t. It’s just-” she drifted off here again. “It’s just a long story.”

“I don’t have any other plans.”

“I’m just trying to figure out where to start,” she replied, but her voice was finally sounding more fond than nervous again. 

She would deny it if asked, but we both knew I was her favorite sibling. Although, maybe favorite wasn’t the right word, because she did love all of us equally, which was to say as much as her heart allowed. It’s just that there was something similar in Anna and me, deep down, there always had been, and we both saw that. I’m sure the closeness in age helped, as well; there was just about a year between us. 

“I know I don’t need to reiterate for you how dating wasn’t really an option for us until college-” 

I made a noise of agreement. She didn’t. I was well-aware of how rare it was for us to see someone we weren’t related to; even a lot of our father's congregation were our cousins. 

“Well, that meant that there were some things that I didn’t realize about myself until, well, college.”  
I nodded. I could hear her take a breath through the receiver. 

“Do you know what the word ‘lesbian’ means, Castiel?”

“Um, no,” I muttered, feeling a little embarrassed about it. I didn’t like not knowing things.

She responded with a light almost-laugh. 

“Don’t feel bad about it; I didn’t either. A lesbian is a woman who is attracted to other women, like romantically.” 

“Oh,” I said, but it was more of a verbal tick than an actual reply. 

It wasn’t something I’d thought about before, a woman being with another woman romantically. I guess, I hadn’t known that was an option. I reminded myself, my exposure to romantic relationships had been  _ very _ limited. Our church wasn’t made up of more than 100 people and, with families as big as our’s tended to be, that was not a lot of variety. 

I thought about it some more. 

“Are there men like that, as well?” I asked. “Men who are interested in other men?”

It was like I could feel Anna exhale, like she’d been holding her breath the entire time I’d been thinking, like she hadn’t known what my response would be. Interesting. 

“Yeah,” she replied, sounding lighter. “There are men like that. Most people call them ‘gay,’ but that can also be used as a catch-all for gay men  _ and  _ lesbians.”

I nodded, once again forgetting she couldn’t see me. She was always pestering me to use facetime instead, but regular phone talking was already outside of my comfort zone. Facetime was too much for me, even for her. 

“Does that have something to do with ‘bisexual’?” I asked. “My friend, well, Sam, he said that earlier and I didn’t know what it meant. I intended to ask you about it.” 

“You have got to stop pretending to know what people mean when you don’t, Castiel.” 

She was trying to sound stern, but she was failing.

“Why? It means that I don’t look strange and then I can just ask you about it later.” 

“Because it  _ will  _ get you into trouble one day. Someday, you’re going to be at a party and someone is going to ask you if you want to share a bowl, or something-”

“Why wouldn’t I want to share a bowl?” I asked. “I love soup.” 

The sound was muffled for a moment and I knew it was because she was laughing at me and didn’t want me to hear. 

“That’s a drug thing, Castiel,” she said, laughter still in her voice. “One that you are  _ not  _ ready to do with anyone if you’re still so scared of looking weird. Besides, Sam and Dean, they get weird; they are pretty weird themselves, trust me. They aren’t going to judge you.” 

“Fine,” I said, mostly to appease her, “I will consider it. Will you tell me what bisexual means now?” 

“It means a man or woman who is attracted to people of the same gender as them, but also other genders.” 

“Oh.” That was simple enough. “So, in Sam’s case, a man who is romantically interested in both men and women?”

“And other genders, yes. Also, Sam and I have already talked about this, but, in the future, people don’t always want their sexuality to be talked about with other people. Sam is pretty open about his, but some people prefer to be private.” 

“Oh, I will keep that in mind. What do you mean by other genders?” 

“That is a whole other conversation, but, some people don’t feel like a man or a woman. There’s a few different names for what they’re feeling, but it can be pretty personal.” 

“Oh,” I said, taking all of this in. “Okay.”

There was silence for a moment, while she let me mull all of this new information over. 

“So,” I began. “Are you bisexual?” 

It still felt a little clumsy coming out of my mouth, but I knew I would get the hang of it.

“No,” she corrected, voice fond. “I’m actually a lesbian.” 

I took a second to sort this fact into the file of all the other things that I knew about my big sister. 

“So, your first date was with a girl?” I asked, finally.

“Yeah,” she said and I could hear the smile in her voice. “My first date was with a girl.”

“Well, that is certainly very helpful for me, seeing as my first date will also be with a girl.” 

She laughed. 

“Yes, I’m glad that this worked out so well for you.”

Another pause. 

“So, what was it like? How did you meet her?” 

“Well,” she said. “It was Jo, actually. Has Sam told you about Jo yet?”

“Jo, their sister?” I asked, shocked. 

“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “That’s almost as horrified as Dean sounded when he first found out, except that he, of course, threatened to do unspeakable things to me if I was just messing around with her.” 

“Were you?” I asked, not letting my mind ponder what “unspeakable things” Dean might be capable of, because, well, he did look like he was capable of some things. I had been surprised by the muscles I’d seen when he’d gotten too warm and removed his flannel last night. 

“I’m choosing to not be offended by that question,” Anna sighed. 

“I’m realizing that there is a lot that I don’t know about you, so I figured I couldn’t be sure.” It came out bitter in a way that surprised me. 

“You can’t honestly be mad at me for not telling you about liking girls. I didn’t know how you’d react! Hell, I didn’t even tell Gabriel for months and, even then, it was only because he caught me.”

“No, I’m not talking about that. I understand that,” I said, even though it was only half true. “Sam told me how you guys really met, about the classes.”

“Oh.” 

Suddenly, my sister sounded very small. That didn’t happen often and all of the apologetic feelings that I probably should have felt thirty seconds earlier came rushing in. 

“I’m sorry, Anna,” I said, feeling the need to make it right. “I shouldn’t have brought it up like that. From what Sam said, it was a very hard time for you. It’s just-just-” I tried to find a softer phrasing, but couldn’t “-you lied to me.”

The line fell silent. I hoped it was because she was thinking, not because I’d somehow made it worse. 

“I could have been there for you,” I continued, softly. “If you’d just told me.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I know you would’ve been there for me. That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense-”

“Let me talk, okay?” 

I slumped back against the tree. Thankful that campus was still relatively deserted, so there was no one around to see me pouting. 

“When I got those test scores back, I felt like such a failure. I had to re-take so much. Chemistry, practically all of the math course, I barely scraped by in Composition and I want to be a journalist; it was all so incredibly embarrassing.”

I thought back to all the times Anna had helped me with my own lessons, Anna teaching me the order of operations, Anna teaching me how to diagram sentences. It didn’t make sense. 

“I had to fight them to even let me into college, promise to take all my remedials in my first two semesters alongside my regular freshman classes. I know I could’ve told you, asked you for help, but what good was that going to do me? I didn’t want to distract you from your own work and have you end up like me. I also didn’t want you worrying you were going to end up like me. So I put my head down and I did it and I was fine.”

“You didn’t have to be alone with that, though.”

She sighed again. 

“Maybe not, but can you honestly tell me that, if you’d known, you wouldn't have been terrified? I do know you, remember?”

She was right, but I didn’t want to admit it to her.

“I still don’t understand how that happened, though. You were the one teaching me most of the time. You’re smarter than me.”

“Well, I think that was part of the problem,” she said. 

She was keeping her voice very neutral. 

“I spent so much of my time teaching you and Hannah and Alfie and not enough time studying for my own classes.” 

“Oh.”

“Oh,” she replied.

The line was quiet again for a few seconds. 

“That’s another reason I didn’t want to tell you. There’s no point in feeling bad about it. It’s not like it’s your fault Chuck left us to fend for ourselves.” 

She was right, of course. It wasn’t her fault that our father always seemed to be somewhere else. It also wasn’t her fault that Michael, our oldest brother, was always either with him or otherwise occupied or that Gabe wasn’t exactly schoolteacher material. Of course, it had all fallen to her, and then to me once she’d left, although Hannah and Alfie were mostly able to take care of themselves by that point. 

It was all our father’s fault, but that isn’t something we ever seemed to say out loud. Too many years living around Michael’s devoted watchfulness for that and, besides, we didn’t need to say it. We all knew. 

“I’m still sorry you went through that,” I said, because I was. “And I’m sorry you had to do it alone.”

“Well, I did have Gabe, so I wasn’t exactly alone,” she said and I could hear that her voice was lighter again. 

“Mhmm, I’m sure Gabe was loads of help studying.”

“Oh, absolutely not, but he does have a talent for blowing off steam.”

There was a real smile in her voice when she said it. I found myself wishing, only for a moment, that I had caved and facetimed her, just so I could see it, only for a moment,though.

“I can’t imagine you and Gabe at a party together,” I told her. “In his stories, he always ends up mostly naked and very intoxicated and, sometimes, on a roof.” 

She laughed.

“That sounds like a typical night out for him, yeah.”

She paused.

“You should try it sometime. You make your own rules now, Castiel,” she said in a sing-song tone. “I think it would be good for you to get drunk enough to steal a karaoke machine and end the night, naked and singing Def Leppard, on top of the rec center.”

She was referencing one of Gabe’s stories about his first finals week, a favorite of his to tell. 

“I think  _ that  _ would be incredibly bad for me,” I replied. “But I will keep it in mind.”

“Promise me,” she said, voice serious. “That you will get miraculously drunk at, at least, one party this semester.”

I groaned, apparently loud enough that she could hear it. 

“Promise me, Castiel.”

“Fine,” I conceded. “I’ll put it on the to-do list. Who knew that you would turn out to be such a bad influence.”

“Honestly, I think that anyone who looked at our life from the outside knew that some of us were destined to snap.”

She said it so matter of factly, like it was something she’d thought about extensively. I didn’t know how to take that.

“Don’t go to any parties alone, though,” she said, remembering her protective side again. “Take Sam with you. He’ll make sure you drink enough water and that you get home safe. Oh, or Dean, Dean is great at parties. He’s a surprisingly good dancer.” 

“I’ll be sure to ask him for lessons,” I replied, deadpan. She was starting to get a little overbearing again, but I reminded myself that she meant well. 

“Right.”

She paused. 

“Okay, I’ve got to go. I have plans in half an hour and there was an outline I was hoping to get done for an article idea I have and-”

“And you have to go,” I finished for her. 

“Yeah.”

“I’m not a baby bird,” I told her, sensing her reluctance. “I’m going to survive just fine on my own.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay.”

“Okay…bye.”

“Goodbye, Anna. Good luck with your outline.”

“Thanks,” she replied and then she hung up. 

I leaned back against the tree, letting everything that Anna had just told me sink in. 

She was right. I hadn’t thought very extensively about relationships before. I mean, I’d read about a lot of them, in my books, but, in real life, my experience was very limited. I mean, Michael had given me “The Talk,” which Gabe had then, uh, fully flushed out, in more detail than was probably necessary. Other than that, my family hadn’t talked much about “romance” or “love” or anything like that; we were busy with other things, like studying and taking care of the farm and our elaborate games of make-believe.

Because my stories had never mentioned them, I’d never thought about girls liking other girls or men in relationships with men, but it made sense that they existed. There were all sorts of people in the world and they liked all sorts of different things. I was curious about it, but probably just as much as I was about any sort of relationship. I could ask Sam about it, he’d already told me he was “bisexual,” but Anna had said that it private, so maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe, I would just wait to see if it came up. 

I thought back to yesterday, again, and meeting Dean. I’d thought he was flirting with me, with his looking me up and down and the things that he’d said, but Sam already liked men. Could it run in the family? No, I thought of Gabe and Michael, they were definitely not gay, whatever the word was for that. Sam had said that Dean liked to “throw people off.” Since he’d just met me, he wouldn’t have known how easy it was to throw me off yet; he must have been joking with me, in some way that I hadn’t understood. 

Maybe he’d been trying to intimidate me, that was almost what it had felt like. I was a stranger who was coming to live in a small space with his younger brother; if the roles were reversed and Sam was Hannah, I would want her roommate to know that I was looking out for her, that I was ready to protect her. This must have been some way of showing me that, that Dean was not someone to be messed with. Those were the kidneys of signals that I didn’t always know how to pick up on. 

Well, I thought, good for him. I don’t have plans of messing with anyone, least of all Sam. 

I stood up, brushing leaf litter off of my jeans and stretching out my legs. One had fallen slightly asleep. I headed back to my room, saying the words “gay” and “lesbian” over and over in my mind, still thinking about this part of my sister that I hadn’t known existed until a few minutes ago. This part of the world that I hadn’t known existed, I corrected with an internal sigh. If I hated the feeling of not knowing something, this was that feeling expanded tenfold. How much more was there to the world that I had no idea existed? 

How naive was I really, without even knowing it? 

I sighed to myself, knowing that wasn’t a question that I could ask anyone and them have an answer for. It was something I would simply have to find out for myself, the hard way, I guess. I’d joked with Anna about making a list, but maybe that was something I should do. I loved a good list and I could do with some goal setting this semester. 

I was still turning the idea over in my mind, when I headed back through the doors into the warmth. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The joking title for this chapter is "Castiel finds out gay people exist."
> 
> I have 7 chapters outlines for this, so far, and am hoping to upload every week and a half :)

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at demonblooddyke :)


End file.
